Paternal
by nlizzette7
Summary: Because Chuck Bass and Harold Waldorf are polar opposites in every sense of the phrase, right down to their sexual orientations. But there's one thing that ties them together, equal hearts, equal adoration for a beautiful brunette who prefers macaroons over chocolate and classics over all the rest. Snippets on a brief, untold history. One-shot.


**Paternal **

He's eight years old, and Blair Waldorf is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. More beautiful than the leggy blondes on Bart's arm leaving breadcrumbs on lipstick-stained scotch glasses and lacy shreds of lingerie atop his race cars. More beautiful than Svetlana and Marie in the old copy of _Playboy _his father had left astray. But just as beautiful as a picture in his mind, of a mother he's never seen, of pretty eyes and tumbling brown hair.

Chuck sees Blair, and he has to have her. He knows that having someone, keeping them close, never letting go, that's what love must mean. Because every time Bart drops a sailboat in a bottle, a new bowtie, an Armani scarf into his room, his nanny pats his head with a sympathetic shrug.

"Mr. Bart gives you things because he loves you," she says, adjusting the collar of his small suit.

"But then he always leaves," Chuck pouts, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. His nanny sighs then, her skin wrinkling into a thousand tired lines around her eyes, and she kneels to his level, looks him straight in the eye.

"Sometimes that is the only way people can love," she says. "They keep birds in cages, they drown them in pretty things because they are too afraid they will fly away."

Chuck doesn't know about birds in cages.

But when Blair twirls around in her little violet dress at her party, he sees feathers in the place of purple tulle.

And so he pushes through the crowd of awkward, glammed-out nine year olds, right to _her_ at the center of the room. Chuck tries to cling on to images of Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, the men at the bottom of staircases, the men with beautiful women on their arms. But he begins to talk, and all he can remember is Bart, and nothing he says is making Blair fall in love with him.

"I'm Chuck Bass."

"I don't _care_."

"Look, Waldorf – "

"My name is Blair. And, if you'll excuse me, I have a party to host."

Chuck is desperate, angry at the blatant rejection. Before he can stop himself, his hand is darting out, surfacing with a shiny purple headband, and he's holding it just out of reach of the fuming little girl before him.

"Give it."

"Not until you talk to me."

"I don't want to talk to you," Blair spat. "I hate you."

"You don't hate me," Chuck says, a teasing grin on his face. "You love me."

Blair scoffs at him, her chin turning up in horror at his suggestion. "I don't _love _you. I don't even know you." Someone catches her attention from across the room, and she waves the tall man over. "Daddy, do something about this…this _Chuck Bass_."

Chuck stares up at Harold Waldorf and rolls his eyes, angered that she had the nerve to tell on him. In his momentary distraction, Blair snatches the headband from his hands and storms off. Chuck is left with a petulant frown on his face and an amused father hovering above him.

"Is there a problem, Chuck?"

"_She_ seems to think there's one," Chuck explains.

"Were you bothering her?" Harold's tone isn't accusing, but kind. He ushers Chuck away from the crowd and offers him a glass of fruit punch, sitting across from the boy in the Waldorfs' empty dining room.

"I wasn't…" Chuck frowns, downing the fruit punch as if it were a shot glass. "I'm Chuck Bass. I told her I liked her." He says it as an equation, shocked by its answer. "I don't understand."

Harold smiles, giving Chuck a gentle pat on the back. "When Blair was five years old, I bought her a purple stuffed rabbit, an adorable little thing. But, of course, she was terribly dissatisfied, and she had me run into every toy store in Manhattan until I found one more expensive than another girl in her class had. I looked tirelessly, knowing that she just wanted me to show her that I cared, until I found one to her liking."

"Oh," Chuck says, with slight interest, not sure what the strange man's point is. "And?"

"And, when her bedtime came, do you know which one she slept beside?"

Chuck cocks his head to the side, thinking. "The expensive one?"

"No," Harold laughs. "She tossed that one in her closet and went back to the purple rabbit." Chuck smirks at the ridiculous thought, glancing through the opened dining room doors, to where Blair is laughing at a joke. "Chuck, my daughter is the most difficult girl you'll ever meet. She'll fight against what she truly wants to the ends of the earth, just because it's in her nature." He nods at the doorway. "You may think it foolish. But it's even more foolish to give up on a girl like her."

Chuck nods back, sliding down from the chair before setting his glass back down on the table. He saunters over to Blair again, bracing himself with another speech, until he realizes that she isn't alone. She stands by the mantelpiece at the center of the room with a golden-haired handsome boy, one Chuck knows very well.

"Hi, I'm Nate."

A dimpled smile, hair twirled around her fingertips. "I'm Blair."

Chuck swallows down his words like acid, taking a bitter step back. He watches as her smile grows, as Nate whispers something into her ear. Harold watches on with a small frown on his face, feeling only sympathy for the broken young boy before him. But before he can walk over and reassure him, Chuck disappears into the crowd, stationing himself between two petite blondes with a half-hearted, snarky smirk.

And then Harold watches as his daughter gives her heart away.

As Chuck Bass gives up on his.

:::

He's seventeen years old, and Blair Waldorf is falling apart right before his eyes. Pieces of her are slipping through Chuck's fingertips, and he doesn't like it – doesn't like being so damn helpless. Doesn't like that a single tear down her porcelain cheek can force his dormant heart to stutter back to life. He sits across from her in his suite, their peers a drunken, partying mess around them, clouding over the storm brewing inside of Blair. His arm raises, reaches, desperate to find the slump of her shoulders.

That is not his job.

But his best friend is an idiot who wastes his mind on a lost blonde on a broken pedestal, somewhere in the realm of trashy boarding schools and escape. Chuck needs to get drunk until he doesn't care. He needs Nate to sober up enough to notice the lone tear on Blair's cheek, to do _something _about it.

Chuck Bass rarely gets what he needs.

And so he pushes up from his seat with an impatient huff and locks the door to his room behind him, muting the party outside. He has no trouble getting the phone number after a quick dial to his father's secretary, the one who mewls at him every time he stops by Bass Industries. He flirts, he drawls, and she comes up with Harold Waldorf's phone number within minutes.

It takes two rings before –

"Allô?"

"You can't just fucking leave her."

"I…" Harold's voice is sleepy, and Chuck realizes that there's a time difference, that Harold is just waking up in some quaint little chateau in France while his daughter is swallowing down her misery on the Upper East Side. "Who is this?"

"It's Chuck," he says impatiently. "Chuck Bass."

"Charles," Harold coughs. "What are you..."

"You know her," Chuck spits. "She trusts you more than anyone in the world. You know that she gets sick when all of this shit happens. You're not going to do this to her."

"I appreciate your concern, Chuck," Harold says, his voice growing stern. "But you don't understand the situation. Her mother and I have handled my indiscretion as we see fit."

"Your _indiscretion_ is going to kill her." Chuck is surprised at his biting tone, nearly a yell into his cell phone. "All I have to understand is that you left her. You told me that anyone who could walk away from Blair Waldorf was a fool," Chuck says, his tone dripping disgust. "What happened to the man who went to every toy store in the city to find his daughter the perfect stuffed animal?"

Harold is silent for a moment, contemplative. "What happened to the little boy who would stop at nothing to make her fall in love with him?"

Chuck fumes on the other end of the line, the question infiltrating every one of his senses until he numbs them down. _That boy is gone_. And he would never resurface. Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf, together? What a joke. Chuck is damaged goods, a monster in the form of a boy who knows nothing else. Blair wants a fairytale at the stroke of midnight, glass slippers that would shatter in Chuck's hands. So he steadies his voice into an empty drone, his thumb poised to end the call.

"Fix this," Chuck demands.

And later that night, when he is almost resolved to fly to France himself, Blair's phone rings in her purse. Chuck glances up with interest, setting his drink down as Blair's eyes widen at the caller ID. She extricates herself from Nate's noncommittal arm and gets up to take the call. On her way out of the room, she catches Chuck staring and narrows her eyes at him, glancing around.

"What, Bass?" she snaps.

"Nothing," Chuck replies. Blair shrugs at his smugness, rolling her eyes as she spins on her heel.

And he blames it on the brandy in his glass, the haziness of the room when his chest lifts, his lips turn into a smile. And from the other side of the wall, Blair murmurs, "Daddy? Hi."

:::

He's twenty-three years old, and Blair Waldorf is now Blair Bass. Her eyes sparkle as bright as the ring on her finger, and Chuck thinks that he must have done something right along the tangle of tragedies if he gets to look at her now, just this way, with her cheeks in a tinted flush, her tiny hand fitting snugly into his.

"Daddy, we're married."

It's Roman who jets forward first, pulling her into a tight, excited hug. Blair tenses at first, and Chuck holds back a smirk. His wife is not a hugger, and he can see it in the way she gingerly taps the man's back before politely stepping away. But she holds Roman's hand in a show of affection as the man grins back at her. "Congratulations, bellissima" The room falls silent when Roman whisks Blair away to further inspect the diamonds on her finger.

"You're married," Harold muses, inviting Chuck to sit across from him on the pale pink chaise. They're honeymooning in Paris, per Blair's request, per Chuck's happy acceptance. He knows that this is what love is now, to watch her doll herself up in Parisian designs, to see the smile on her face when he kisses her atop the Eiffel Tower. To love someone else is to make their happiness your own. To let the bird out of its cage and fly along with it.

"You have to understand that I wanted things done differently," Chuck drawls. "A proper venue, a proper guest list. I insisted, but she had none of it." Chuck smirks. "I may be Chuck Bass, but _she _is Blair Waldorf."

Harold nods, understanding. He glances down at the wedding band on Chuck's finger and smiles. "I'm impressed, Charles." Chuck glances up, taken aback by Harold's reaction. "I heard about what happened to your father, and…I feel as if it's my duty to let you know how proud I am." Chuck straightens up at his approval, intent on hearing more. "All of Blair's friends, I've watched Serena find her way, Nate find his head, but you…you've found your heart. You found it in my daughter. I knew on that very first day. It was always supposed to be you."

"I…" Chuck trails off, listening to Blair's laughter in the next room, Roman's excited ranting. "Thank you, sir."

And later on, when Blair sidles up to Chuck and plants a soft kiss into the curve of his neck, she whispers, "Well? How did it go? Was he angry?"

Chuck grins, looking up at the framed photograph on Harold's mantle, a miniature version of Blair with a worn purple rabbit cradled in her arms. The real Blair tilts his face back to look at her, the question still in her eyes. And so he drops a hand around her shoulders, kisses the frown from her lips. "No, he wasn't angry at all. Your father and I understand each other very well."

Because Chuck Bass and Harold Waldorf are polar opposites in every sense of the phrase, right down to their sexual orientations. But there's one thing that ties them together, equal hearts, equal adoration for a beautiful brunette who prefers macaroons over chocolate and classics over all the rest.

And with a bond like that, nothing else matters.


End file.
